When I was first getting interested in "high fidelity," as we called it back in the 1960s, there was an audio dealer in Worthing, England called Bowers & Wilkins. Their advertisement in the February 1966 issue of Hi-Fi News features their annual sale, with a Quad Electrostatic Speaker priced at $l30 instead of the manufacturer's recommended $l37 (footnote 1), and offering other bargains, from ReVox, Quad, Rogers, Leak, and Armstrong. Conspicuous by their absence from the ad are Bowers & Wilkins speakers. The first reference to those I could find was in the August 1968 issue of what was then called The Gramophone, when race-car driver turned audio critic John Gilbert raved about the P2 Monitor. Designed by avid concertgoer John Bowers with Peter Hayward and featuring an EMI bass unit and a Celestion tweeter, the two-way P2 was priced at more than twice the Quad speaker, at $l159/pair.

UPDATE: On Monday, February 9, Tower Records, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Industry observers had predicted the move in the weeks leading up to the filing. MTS, Inc., as the company is officially known, listed "more than $100 million of assets and more than $100 million of debts in its filing," according to a report from Reuters news service. "MTS expects to emerge from Chapter 11 within 45 to 60 days. It plans to swap $110 million of senior debt for $30 million of new senior notes and an 85% equity stake. Existing equity holders would retain a 15% stake," the report continued.

In his review of the Cary Audio Design CAD-572SE monoblock power amplifier, Martin Colloms explains, "It's no accident that low- and zero-feedback triode technology is now the mainstay of the Cary amplifier line." MC then reports on whether or not this approach has succeeded. RObert Deutsch adds some further thoughts.

Lehmann audio has carved out a small niche for itself in the analog market with the Black Cube phono preamp (first noted by Michael Fremer in the October 1998 issue of Stereophile). The company now hopes to reach a wider audience in the US and Canada for the Black Cube and the rest of its products with a new distribution arrangement between itself and Hudson Audio Imports.

SunnComm and others have been trying for years to find ways to prevent consumers from copying music discs. While their success in preventing digital copies has been mixed, lurking in the background was a problem many felt could never be solved.

The Compact Disc clearly hasn't read the script. At a time when, in the autumn of its commercial life, the format is supposed to be stepping aside to allow younger blood to succeed it, CD has instead in recent years enjoyed something of a revival in audiophile opinion. While SACD and DVD-Audio, rather strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage, are doing more plain fretting than anything, the best in CD sound quality has improved sufficiently for some to question whether we need the new media at all.

In conversation with Cary founder Dennis Had at a recent audio convention breakfast, I learned that he had a long career in electronics, specializing in military/industrial high-power radio-frequency amplification and transmitters. However, his dream was always the re-creation of single-ended tube amplifiers, especially zero-feedback designs.